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More analysis coming soon.
Canadian GDP up, carbon pollution down for large emitters
(Toronto, Canada, December 16, 2009) Today, Corporate Knights Magazine released a summary of the changes in emissions levels from Canada’s top ten biggest greenhouse gas polluters.
From 2007 to 2008, the top ten polluters in Canada slashed their greenhouse gas emissions by 9.2 million tonnes, or nine per cent, while the economy (gross domestic product) grew by 0.5 per cent.
“While our government says that reducing emissions by 20 per cent over 15 years is a heavy lift, our companies are showing the art of the possible: how almost half that target can be pulled off in just one year,” said Toby Heaps, Editor of Corporate Knights, from the climate talks in Copenhagen.
Of the ten largest emitters, all but two managed to reduce their emissions from 2007 to 2008, according to freshly released data from Environment Canada compiled by Corporate Knights. Reasons for the declines included planned and unplanned production outages, lower provincial demand, and increased generation from non-carbon-intensive facilities (nuclear and hydro). The increase at the Boundary Dam facility was due to the completion of maintenance in 2007 and the plant coming back online.
The emissions from these top ten emitters still make up 12 per cent of Canada’s total 747 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. Canada’s 350 large industrial facilities (required to report GHG emissions by the Federal Government) reduced overall emissions by 15.5 million tonnes or 5.8 per cent from 2007 to 2008.
The top ten GHG emitters in the 2010 Corporate Knights Carbon 50 by facility are as follows (ranked by size of emissions decrease):
Background
| Company with facility |
Total 1-Year Absolute Reduction in GHGs (t) for these facilities |
How they did it |
| Capital Power |
1,116,718 |
Two production outages, including one that lasted 39 days at the Genesee plant in October 2008. The other was for routine maintenance. The company is also increasing its mix of renewables. |
| Ontario Power Generation |
2,673,490 |
CO2 emissions from OPG's Lambton and Nanticoke generating stations declined in 2008 as a result of lower provincial electricity demand, good performance from OPG's nuclear and hydro plants, and new generation in the province. Going forward CO2 emissions from coal will be limited by Ontario government targets until coal is phased out by the end of 2014. OPG is investigating the conversion of some of its coal-fuelled units to renwable biomass. |
| SaskPower |
-411,083 (increase) |
Maintenance was done at the Boundary Dam facility in 2007, so the increase in GHGs from 2007 to 2008 was the unit coming back up to full operation. |
| Syncrude Canada Ltd. |
2,709,719 |
In general, Syncrude has been focusing on improving energy efficiency and had succeeded in increasing efficency per barrel extracted by 17 per cent over the last 2 years. This has resulted in $100 million in savings. Improving efficiencies in developing new tech in mechanical energy instead of thermal energy (Syncrude has also developed "low-energy extraction" which cuts the temperature required to separate bitumen from 80C to 40C. |
| TransAlta Corporation |
852,169 |
At the two facilities, the decrease was due to a production change. Transalta produced less electricity in 2008 versus 2007, which means that they burned less coal and therefore emitted less GHG emissions. There were also scheduled and unscheduled shutdowns of the plants. |
| Suncor Energy |
439,794 |
The decreases were the result of extended outages at one of Suncor's oil sands hydrotreating units, which resulted in a larger amount of sour crude oil product being produced and thus fewer GHGs emitted. Suncor states that its hydrotreating units, while pushing up its emissions profile due to the energy they use, produce significantly cleaner crude than other sources reaching refineries, which in turn do not bear this in their emissions profiles. |
| ATCO Power |
-90,728 (increase) |
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